1985 Porsche 911 Carrera 3.2: Our Shed

Our shed: Joe Kenwright breaks a long-standing habit, which prevents him having to break into his own car...

Our shed: 1985 Porsche 911

1985 Porsche 911

PLASTIC FANTASTIC

It’s a long standing variation of Murphy’s Law that a 20 cent part can bring the whole shooting match to a halt. In this case, it was a failed $1.74 part in my Porsche Carerra 3.2 that should have ruined my day.

It’s a habit of mine to park the passenger’s side of the car with the best security system hard up against the driver’s door of the one easiest to break into. Having visited other people’s collections over the years, I know I am not alone.

Thankfully, the last time I put the Porsche away I couldn’t be bothered with my usual procedure, so there was a gap between the car next to it and the passenger-side door. You can be lucky sometimes.

I hit the remote and the passenger’s door button popped up but not the driver’s side. I could hear something happening in the driver’s door but it wasn’t going to open with the key or the remote.

When this happens, the only way to get into a Porsche is to unlock the passenger’s door and get your hand around the knurled knob on the driver’s door that winds the button up. Locking up is the reverse. If I had jammed the Porsche against the car next to it as per usual, there was no easy way in.

As it turned out, there is a rod just below the exterior door handle with a screw-in plastic ball clip that connects the key lock and the remote mechanism with the internal rod that lifts the lock button.

Like all early plastic items, it had split then fallen off. It was simply a matter of stripping off the door trim, replacing it with Porsche’s latest $1.74 plastic part that’s less likely todeteriorate and everything was working again.

If there was an upside, it was good to discover that no one had been inside the driver’s door for a long while, if ever. Yet it was the first time in 40 years of classic car ownership when I couldn’t use the key to unlock a door. Bloody plastics!